


the repeated image of the lover destroyed (crossed out)

by writtendlessly



Category: Sorted (Website) RPF
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst and Feels, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, brief mention of sexual act complete with the f word and everything fyi, im back and still being vague, this makes sense to me i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 04:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20109130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writtendlessly/pseuds/writtendlessly
Summary: There is not a single thing similar between Malibu and London, except maybe the people surrounding him and the heavy black camera equipment they can't seem to leave behind. But even the people are sun-kissed and smiling, an easy looseness to their limbs that is part alcohol and part undefined.





	the repeated image of the lover destroyed (crossed out)

**Author's Note:**

> More vague angst that doesn't make any sense to anyone but me but what can you do?

It's only been a few days and yet James already feels a part of himself bleeding out and sinking into the warm west coast air. He could live here forever, he thinks, and even the way smiling mouths move around vowels feels different but familiar to him. He's lived in this country before, years ago now, and yet this is brand new, no lingering spring chill, the only snow found on mountain peaks.

It's new and old. It's old friends but new experiences, old affection and new desire. It's the five of them, hurtling towards new adventure and yet only barely meeting the speed limit, puttering along in the cheapest rental van they could find and none of them overly concerned with reaching their destination just yet. A highway sign reads "Malibu Beach" as if they couldn't already smell it in the air, the salt and the fish and the freedom. 

There is not a single thing similar between Malibu and London, except maybe the people surrounding him and the heavy black camera equipment they can't seem to leave behind. But even the people are sun-kissed and smiling, an easy looseness to their limbs that is part alcohol and part undefined. 

James was roped into driving with a half-hearted excuse that he has the most experience in this country, but the indescribable feeling of being the one controlling their journey is worth being the only fully sober one. When he pulls off at the next exit and finds his way to a sandy parking lot, it's with such a simple confidence that everyone just believes he's been here before. He doesn't bother correcting them.

Jamie stumbles out of the backseat first, Barry quickly following after in his desperation to stop being squished in the middle seat. Ben exits in a much more dignified manner, but Mike, silent in the passenger seat next to James, remains. Mike's left hand is still draped over the gear selector where it's been the entire car ride. His fingers are loose, palm heavy, but the way his body is angled awkwardly towards the middle proves that the placement is anything but casual. 

James wants to blame it on the trip, the uncomfortable nuance of navigating a relationship in a new location. He wants to blame it on the way they shared earbuds on the flight in, even when their music tastes are so different, and how James thought Mike had fallen asleep, cheek pressed against his shoulder, but the reflection off the seat-back screen showed open eyes. He wants to blame it on a winter night, months ago, with James smoking on his balcony and the breath from Mike's lips emulating a cloud of cigarette smoke. 

Mike slips his hand down, drums his fingers a little against the center console, and shifts forward in his seat. He jerks back, movement aborted as his still-buckled seat belt keeps him in place. He huffs out a little laugh and unclips it, opening his door and putting one foot outside on hot pavement before he turns back to look at James. 

James doesn't move, not purposely, but he's swaying forward and back slightly, unable to fully control it and seemingly unaware. Mike smiles, bright teeth and crinkled up eyes, and asks, "You comin'?"

James just nods, a slow up-and-down movement like he's a buoy and Mike is a sailboat driving past, carving his way through but leaving no trace except a gentle rocking. Mike fully steps out of the van then, and James finally turns the car off and exits as well. Barry has their cooler dragging behind him, his steps heavy and awkward in the thick sand. Jamie is laying out some sort of towel or blanket and Ben inexplicably has an American football that he's lightly passing from hand to hand as if he's barely resisting the urge to find another one and start juggling them.

James turns towards the back, where Mike was rummaging around previously, and the other man peers back at him from behind a camera. The lens cap is still on, so James leans forward and pops it off just as Mike presses a button and a shutter sound goes off. James doesn't ever want to see that picture, knowing exactly the way his face softens in fondness in moments like these, with people like— them. 

  
  


An hour or so later, Jamie and Barry are out making fools of themselves with the surfboards from their rented beach house, and James is sitting with Ben on a blanket eating the pristine and carefully wrapped sandwiches they had prepared earlier that day. It's past lunch, but not quite dinner, which is the perfect time for James to crack open a barely-cool beer and drink it down like it's water. It's cheap beer, so it basically _ is _ water, but it makes him feel nostalgic for a memory he's doesn't actually have. 

Mike is still wandering around with their camera, snapping pictures of the ocean, the shells in the sand, the dripping hair and happy smiles of Jamie and Barry as they fall off their surfboards for the hundredth time. The mid-afternoon sun was warm enough to get Mike to remove his black t-shirt, tossing it in the general direction of their makeshift picnic. James can only see his back, the other man focused on the more interesting sights of ocean waves and white clouds, but James can still perfectly imagine the soft lines of his chest and waist. 

Ben engages him in idle chit chat, reminiscing on the few days they spent in Los Angeles and the rest of the things they have planned for this tour. Their schedule is hectic and confusing enough that Ben has an entire spreadsheet about it, frequently consulting with the other staff that they brought along about any changes. Ben still has some concerns, but he can't text them about it, because they decided to just fly to San Francisco instead of tagging along for their road trip. So instead, he shares his thoughts with James and James listens silently, nodding along and offering platitudes when he can. 

They're both looking out at the beach instead of each other, and James is thankful for his sunglasses and the way Ben can read all of them like the glossy, full-color pages of a cookbook. There's no one to draw his attention away, to ask what he's looking at, to watch him with pity or contempt or fear, to tell him the same warnings he's already told himself a million times. And yet, even with freedom to stare at whatever he chooses, his eyes are still unfocused and his mind replaying the same moment from that morning over and over. Changing the angle, the lens, the setting and characters, as if he just needs a few tweaks to find an alternate ending. 

  
  


He had been on the first floor of the tiny home they rented for a few days just outside of LA, moving as silently as possible while the others slept. It was still early, barely past dawn, but James was wide awake, his body still on London time even as the others seemed unaffected. He was packing up the equipment and clothes they had left strewn about the living room and kitchen after too many cocktails the night before. It was too early to go pick up the rental car, but he was trying to make use of his energy so that when the others boys woke up, they didn't have as much to do before they left. 

He was just stepping back in after taking a bag of garbage outside when Mike came down the stairs, blinking blearily and tugging his sweater sleeves past his hands. Mike's hair was ruffled by sleep but still golden, the few days of sunshine having lightened the strands subtly. A stray sunbeam, just a sliver really, cut across the staircase and Mike's torso like caution tape on a crime scene. James pretended that he couldn't read.

"Mornin'," Mike mumbled, just two steps away from the main level but not making any effort to keep going. 

"Hey," James answered and, against his will, it came out like a whisper. 

Mike yawned, mumbled about coffee, but he still didn't move. James could have offered him some medication for his headache, some crackers for his nausea, a few jokes about how familiar he was with Mike's hangovers. But a hangover is a result of an action—or really, a lot of smaller actions snowballing into one—and acknowledging the end would mean acknowledging the beginning. There's a lot of things James could have done, but what he couldn't do (not then, not ever) was put a name to the tension between them, the feeling of skin on his hands and the tiny flecks of paint that linger on Mike's shirt from when he was pushed against the brick wall of the bar they were at. 

James didn't know if they fucked or not. He didn't find any condoms in the bathroom garbage can but that didn't prove anything. He had about two missing hours from his memory of last night but he knew Mike was there with him, whatever they did. James had woken up in his own bed, in his own clothes, but that didn't _ prove _ anything. 

Mike finally took a step down, just one, and the wooden floor creaked underneath his feet.

"Hey," James said again but this time it wasn't a greeting, just the start of some longer poem that he couldn't keep in his chest any longer once the silence was broken. Mike looked at him, really _ looked_, not just at him but through him, eyes meeting and having a silent conversation but James was speaking English and Mike wasn't. Or maybe it was James speaking another language, Portuguese or German or French. 

Mike found what he wanted eventually, while James was still searching for a rosetta stone, and suddenly the windows were closed and locked shut. Mike's phone rang from the pocket of his sweatpants and he finally took the last few steps to make it to the first floor, just a few seconds away from where James was standing, still clutching a piece of paper he had found taped to the door on his way back inside. 

Mike let it ring long enough for James to slip into the nearby bathroom. He was washing his hands for no reason when Mike finally picked up with soft words that brought James back to last night, back to a night seven months ago, back to another empty staircase indistinguishable from the current one, where James put his thoughts to words and ruined everything. 

  
  


On the beach, James opens his eyes to the sound of a cell phone ringing, jolting a little bit at the sudden sound and the sense of confusion that always comes when you wake up from unintentional sleep. It's a familiar ringtone, but it only plays for a few seconds before it's silenced. James chances a look to his left, already knowing but needing confirmation that the person beside him was no longer Ben. He hates how much he can sense Mike's presence, as if he's tuned in to only one frequency and it's not even his own. 

It's a few hours later, it seems, because the sun is low enough in the sky that it's nearly blinding to look out at the ocean. James looks anyway, idly wondering where the others are, and he can spot Jamie and Barry sprawled out in exhaustion right on the edge of where the water meets the sand. Ben is gone, along with the cooler, but a charcoal grill is set up and already getting warm. 

"Ben's prepping," Mike says, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder to the tiny house behind them. It's barely big enough for the five of them but it still cost a fortune because of the location. They saved money on not flying, and Jamie insists they can write it off as a business expense, so nobody was too worried about it. 

James nods and sits up straighter, twisting his back to the left, then right, and stretching his arms out in front of him. He's restless, a little bit, and not nearly as buzzed as he wants to be. The camera Mike was using earlier is resting on the blanket between them, lens cap off and neck strap still attached. James has an inexplicable urge to pick it up, so he does, and he flicks to the internal storage for a moment. He sees blue skies and sand but no people, and he switches back to the camera mode, watching the ocean waves through the small screen.

He takes a picture, but Barry was mid-laugh when the shutter goes off and the serene image was ruined by the unflattering face that James had caught. Mike gets up next to him and James turns in his direction, camera moving first before his head follows. His finger hovers over the button but doesn't take a picture until Mike is already stepping up the few steps into their house. He emerges just a minute later with a tray of burger patties and sausages. James thinks about helping, but instead he snaps a few pictures as Mike tries to juggle the tray, the tongs he's using to move the food, and the lid of the grill. 

Mike works quickly and silently, his face already turning red from the heat of standing so close to the burning charcoal. By the time he deems his work done for now and puts the lid back on, he's sweating and stripping out of his shorts and James has the camera setting switched to video. 

Mike disappears and appears again with a new tray, vegetables this time, and James finally stands up to film him as Mike lifts the lid and starts rearranging things to make them all fit. 

"Here we have Mike, cooking dinner," James commentates, sounding much more composed than he feels. "We're trusting him, for some reason, to grill."

Mike rolls his eyes, camera persona already slipped on like a jacket, "Here we have James, an actual chef, not helping."

"Someone has to make content," he replied and wiggles the camera for emphasis. Mike is still shirtless and in his boxer briefs, face red and hair golden like he's James' own personal sunset, and James turns the camera to face the ocean. He zooms in on Barry and Jamie, explaining why they're slumped on the sand as if they had run a marathon. 

Ben eventually pads out of the house, feet bare, and slides in next to Mike. Mike hands over the tongs without a word and James breathes, "Ah, finally, a chef."

Ben laughs at the camera and gives some grilling tips, smiling so big that James doesn't have the heart to tell him that this video will probably never make it past his computer's hard drive. There's nothing inherently incriminating about it, James thinks, but the way Mike had looked past the camera and directly at James felt too intimate to post online. Their soft banter around the grill was the first thing they had said to each other since that morning, and James needs some more time to consult his dictionary and translate the meaning into something he understands. 

Mike wanders off, football in hand, and looks back at James with an invitation in his smile that James had never refused in all the years they've known each other. He doesn't plan to start now. He sets the camera on a bench, points it in their direction and pretends like it's still filming them as he moves away. He hopes, rather deliriously, that a rolling camera will keep Mike from doing whatever James thinks he might do. Mike knows it isn't on, and James knows that Mike knows, but the sun hits the camera in a way that they can almost pretend the red light that indicates filming is still on. 

"Let's see what you got, pretty boy," Mike taunts, positioning himself to throw the football across the space between them. James laughs, surprised that Mike could even call James a word like 'pretty' when Mike's walking around looking the way he does. 

"Do you even know what that is?" James replies, walking backwards to a better distance for playing catch. "I know it's been a long time since you've done any exercise."

Mike hesitates for less than a second and then throws, and James remembers with a sudden clarity the time when Mike had told him about his diet and his trainer as the football smacks into his open hands. James tosses it back, harder than necessary, but Mike manages to catch it with a small "oof" that James can hear even from where he is. 

"Hey hotshot, take it down a notch," Mike calls back and James' memory continues, to the point where Mike had finished his spiel about calories and protein and James talked about the pottery class he took once, how he couldn't stop crushing the soft clay in his hands when he tried to mold it into shape. "This isn't quarterback tryouts." 

James tries to remember if the quarterback was somebody who actually threw the ball or spent more time just running around, but he can't exactly remember. Mike probably knows, the way he always knows random facts about useless things like the different kinds of carbs and sports that aren't popular in England and every single one of James' insecurities and secrets, even the ones he hasn't managed to drag out of James just yet. Conversations with Mike always ended up being a confessional.

"Not my fault you're too weak," James bites back, and this time Mike actually stops, hands falling from their previous throwing position. The sun, now a bit lower in the sky but still not quite a sunset, lights Mike up from behind as if he's something descended from heaven or dragged out of hell. 

It's so goddamn cliched that James wants to be sick but the sunbeams slip through the strands of Mike's hair and cast his shadow on the sand between them and James knows, more than he knows anything else, that he is the weak one. Mike seems to come to the same realization and his smile is sharp enough and mean enough to be nothing but devastatingly beautiful. 

"I could still kick your ass," Mike retorts, much too late to be a proper response, and throws the ball. James catches it again and hears, _I could still destroy you _and Mike is a boat and James is a buoy but he's also an anchor, a tsunami, a knot in the wood. He's a thousand different actors in a thousand different movies playing the same story of mistake-disaster-epiphany and trying to get lines out through a mouthful of glass. 

On the flight in, he had looked out the window and thought that open fields and city lights looked the same no matter where in the world you were. He thought, _ this is just like home _ as heat seeped through the fabric of his sweater into his shoulder. On this beach, now, he knows that London isn't his home but neither is Los Angeles or Birmingham or Greenwich. He knows that he'll spend a lifetime searching for it in the spaces between floorboards and open waters. He knows that he found it, once, in soft skin and dark stubble and that he chose to sink the boat instead of guide it home to an unknown port. 

James throws the ball back and Mike laughs, bitter and sweet, and James _ knows _. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from and a lot of this story is heavily inspired by the poem “Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out” by Richard Siken
> 
> Also inspired by this exchange:
> 
> Barry: What is your favorite Sorted memory?  
James: Oh no, I don’t want to get soppy.  
Barry: Go on. I’ll be here. We’re all here.  
James: Um, it’s when- it’s when we were all on a road trip from LA to San Francisco and we were on Malibu beach-  
Barry: Oh, playing football?  
James: And we were playing football and you and Jamie were surfing. And I filmed Mike barbecuing in his pants.  
Mike: Oh yeah.  
James: That’s a true story.  
Barry: Did that video ever-  
James: That’s not why that’s my favorite memory.  
Mike: Lies!


End file.
